This invention relates to hinges for lamp housings, such as houisngs for flood lights. Lamps of the type of interest to this invention are generally provided to illuminate structures and areas. They are customarily mounted to a fixed base such as a mast or a stub shaft. Their field of illumination is intended to be adjusted, and for this purpose a hinge is provided. This hinge inables the lamp to be tilted to its most advantageous position.
However useful such a hinge may be for mounting and for adjusting the position of the housing, it generally constitutes the least secure part of the mounting system, and frequently also the most unattractive. Flood lights are increasingly used in architectual environments, not merely for illuminating structures and areas, but for illuminating them attractively and without themselves constituting an eyesore of their own. While much attention has been given to making the lamp housing attractive or at least unobtrusive, little has been done to improve the asethetics of their mounting means. Further, as the stub shafts and housing became more effective or at least less obtrusive, the hinges themselves became a more obvious target for tampering.
Thus, the inherent necessities of security and adjustability for a hinge have become even more demanding, not only as to security and convenience, but also as to asethetic appearance. It is not good practice to strengthen or to protect the hinge in such a way that it presents an attractive target to be overcome by the thief or the vandal. Instead, it is an object of this invention to provide a hinge and if desired also a junction box which is unobtrusive, which offers little visual challange (or stimulus) to the thief, which is readily adjusted and which is resistant to the types of tools that are most frequently carried by these undesirables. Therefore a visually attractive product becomes at once less obtrusive, more useful, and less of a target.